Glossary
French: classification de Nice
The Nice Classification is the classification system in force for the goods and services of trademarks — the same system US practitioners use before the USPTO. It contains 45 classes: goods in classes 1 to 34, services in classes 35 to 45. It is regularly updated, with new terms added over time. One quick note for US readers: “Nice” here is the French city (roughly neess, rhyming with “geese”), not the English adjective — the classification takes its name from the international agreement signed there.
Search. The classification’s purpose is to make prior-rights searches possible: it structures how earlier marks are located, both by examiners and by anyone conducting a trademark clearance search. Because the same 45-class grid is used by the INPI, the EUIPO, WIPO and the USPTO alike, a US applicant’s existing class list usually translates directly into a French or EU filing — though the terms accepted in each class heading can differ slightly office to office, so a term cleared by the USPTO’s identification manual is not automatically accepted as drafted by the INPI or the EUIPO.
Fees. The classification determines the cost of a French filing: the INPI charges an official fee of €190 for one class and €40 for each additional class. At the EUIPO, the first class is included in the base filing fee, the second class costs an additional fee, and each further class costs more still. Even though classification has no legal effect as such once the mark is registered, it directly affects what a mark costs — filing broadly “just in case” is never free.
Irregularity notices. When the INPI considers that certain goods or services are filed in the wrong class, it sends the applicant an irregularity notice (comparable to a USPTO office action on classification) requesting that the items be moved to the proper class. If that class is not already covered by the filing, an additional class fee becomes due — a US applicant who under-scoped classes at filing can therefore face a follow-up bill mid-prosecution.
A US software company files a French mark for its app in class 9 (downloadable software) but forgets that offering the app through an online store, or bundling it with consulting services, sits in classes 35 and 42 respectively. If a competitor later launches a similar app under a similar name but sells it only through retail channels in class 35, the class 9 registration may not reach that use at all — the principle of specialty ties protection to the classes actually claimed, not to the business as a whole.
The stakes of classification are predictability and better searching of prior rights — and, for the INPI, the collection of additional fees. The notion of class is therefore essential even though it carries no legal effect on the scope of protection.
You will see the Nice Classification on the first page of any French or EU filing — it drives the trademark fees and costs you are quoted and shapes how a trademark clearance search is scoped before filing. It also resurfaces during French trademark registration and EU trademark registration whenever the office questions how goods or services have been grouped. See also: goods and services, trademark class.